Tag: EVCS

EVCS | Angelo Lo Conte, ‘Landscapes & Garlands of Flowers: an example of naturalistic Lombard devotion’.

Angelo Lo Conte Landscapes & Garlands of Flowers: an example of naturalistic Lombard devotion. This paper explores the invention and the development of the garland of flowers in European art, characterizing it as an example of mutual synergy between Italian philosophy and Flemish art. During the second half of the sixteenth century, Christian philosophy was strongly influenced by figures such as Filippo Neri, Agostino Valier and Federico Borromeo, who introduced a second wave of Counter-Reformational thought based on an innovative, optimistic idea of the world and of mankind’s role in it. According to this interpretation, all created things, animate and inanimate, had a positive value. Nature was thus seen as a manifestation of God’s goodness, and contemplation of nature became a way to establish a spiritual connection with God. Federico Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, explored this philosophical approach in the…

EVCS | Felicity Harley-McGowan ‘Being Blunt: The art history ‘revolution’ in 1940s London′

  Felicity Harley-McGowan ‘Being Blunt’: The art history ‘revolution’ in 1940s London In 1940, London was home to a thriving network of scholarly activity in the discipline of art history. Three books published in that year have been seen within their own fields of research to epitomise the radical transformation of the discipline in the English-speaking world across the 1930s and 1940s. Concerning aspects of classical, medieval and Renaissance art and intellectual culture, each was published by a leading institution (The Courtauld Institute, British Museum, and The Warburg Institute), and authored by now-celebrated scholars (Anthony Blunt, Ernst Kitzinger, and Jean Seznec). This paper will examine aspects of the innovative pedagogical and research ideas epitomised by the books collectively; and with reference to the current state of the discipline, will reflect on the ways in which each was a catalyst for…

EVCS | Anne McComish ‘Myths and Reality: Mosaics from the Vatican Studio, 1900-32’

Anne McComish Myths and Reality: Mosaics from the Vatican Studio, 1900-32 The Vatican Mosaic Studio has been producing mosaic artworks of the highest quality since 1727. Some of its finest works take pride of place in the decorative-arts collections of the world’s major galleries, while others are regularly offered for sale by the world’s leading auction houses. Naturally, the finest works are the most valuable, and it is frequently also assumed that the finest works are necessarily the oldest. However, are all of the works on display or offered for sale as old as their gallery labels or sales catalogues suggest? And how many of them are from the Vatican Mosaic Studio at all? Attribution and dating are among the most challenging tasks for any art historian but in the case of mosaics from the Vatican Mosaic Studio the task…

EVCS 2013

After a brief hiatus, the European Visual Culture Seminar series returns with three papers of the second half of 2013. All three will be held in Room 205, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville. Monday 23 September, 6:30pm Anne McComish, Myths and Reality: Mosaics from the Vatican Mosaic Studio, 1900-32. Monday 28 October, 6:30pm Felicity Harley-McGowan, Being Blunt: The Art History ‘Revolution’ in 1940s London. Monday 25 November, 6:30pm Angelo Lo Conte, Landscapes and Garlands of Flowers: An example of naturalistic Lombard devotion.

Early Modern Art History sessions at 2013 AAANZ Conference

Subscribers to the EVCS may be interested in following sessions at the forthcoming AAANZ Conference, to be held in Melbourne from the 7th to the 9th of December. The sessions below are particularly relevant to anyone working on early modern European art history. For the full call-for-papers and details on submitting a proposal see http://aaanz.info/aaanz-home/conferences/2013-conference/inter-discipline-2013-call-for-papers/ Art, science and German travellers: inter-disciplinary and transnational exchanges in nineteenth-century Australia and New Zealand Dr Kathleen Davidson  | University of Sydney | k.davidson@ozemail.com.au Dr Ruth Pullin |Fellow, State Library of Victoria 2013 | ruth.pullin@gmail.com German-speaking émigrés and visitors were a significant presence in Australian and New Zealand arts and sciences throughout the nineteenth century. From the embrace of Romanticism to their favorable reception of Darwin’s theory of evolution, German travellers arrived in the Antipodes with a sophisticated understanding of the arts and sciences and…

EVCS | Angela Hesson ‘Dangerous Ornament: The Feminine Form in Art Nouveau’

Angela Hesson Dangerous Ornament: The Feminine Form in Art Nouveau The decorative arts of the fin-de-siècle were populated by a feminized pantheon of transient, metamorphic figures and forms delicately suspended in moments of transformation. From pin trays to paper knives to poster advertisements, Art Nouveau refashioned the most controversial subjects of Decadence and Aestheticism within the most accessible and domesticated media. While the changing role of women in the literature and so-called fine art of the period has been subject to continued scholarly investigation, the decorative arts have been excluded from the majority of critical accounts, alluded to perfunctorily as reference points for nineteenth-century misogyny or female objectification. This paper will argue, by contrast, that Art Nouveau’s celebration of the limitlessly transforming feminine form may be productively read within the context of early feminism, the renewal of interest in such…

EVCS | Solidarity, Betrayal, and Opportunism: Deluxe Manuscript Production for Two High-Status Couples in Renaissance Florence

European Visual Culture Seminar Solidarity, Betrayal, and Opportunism: Deluxe Manuscript Production for Two High-Status Couples in Renaissance Florence Hugh Hudson This paper will discuss two deluxe Florentine Renaissance manuscripts in Melbourne collections, the manuscript containing the Scriptores historiae Augustae in the State Library of Victoria, and the Strozzi-Acciaioli Hours in the National Gallery of Victoria, interpreting their heraldry, emblems, inscriptions, and texts, as well as archival evidence, to describe the circumstances surrounding their commissions. It has been possible in the case of the former manuscript to identify more reliable evidence for the original owners, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini, than in previous studies. In the latter case it has been possible to identify the more likely original owners as Benedetto Strozzi and Caterina Acciaioli, than those suggested to date. The approach taken is also broader than in previous studies,…

EVCS | A newly discovered late work by Artemisia Gentileschi: Susanna and the Elders (1652)

European Visual Culture Seminar A newly discovered late work by Artemisia Gentileschi: Susanna and the Elders (1652) Adelina Modesti In 1652 Artemisia Gentileschi painted Susanna and the Elders, considered her last documented work, and believed lost. The painting has recently reappeared in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna with an attribution to the Baroque Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani, but identified as a work of Artemisia Gentileschi by the present speaker. This paper will explore the circumstances of the rediscovery, placing the work within the context of Gentileschi’s oeuvre, tracing its provenance and proposing a possible patron, based on recently discovered documents and on literary accounts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr Adelina Modesti is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Historical & European Studies, La Trobe University, Melbourne. Date: Monday 16 July 2012, 6:30pm Venue: Jim Potter Room, Old…

EVCS | Catholic Collecting and Patronage in Eighteenth-century England: The Lords Clifford of Chudleigh - Matthew Martin

European Visual Culture Seminar Catholic Collecting and Patronage in Eighteenth-century England: The Lords Clifford of Chudleigh Matthew Martin The years following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 have been seen as a period of decline into provincialism for England’s Catholic Gentry and Aristocracy. A close examination of the activities of some of the leading recusant families of the eighteenth century as patrons and collectors suggests quite the opposite. Denied a role in the political life of the country, many Catholic families sought to accrue status through engaging in building, gardening and commissioning and collecting art. In this they emulated their Protestant peers, but Catholic families pursued these activities in a fashion which also expressed a uniquely English Catholic identity. This paper will examine the patronage and collecting of the Lords Clifford of Chudleigh as a case study in this phenomenon. Matthew…

EVCS: Mark Shepheard, ‘Pompeo Batoni and his Roman Sitters: Portraits of the Sforza Cesarini’

Mark Shepheard ‘Pompeo Batoni and his Roman Sitters: Portraits of the Sforza Cesarini.’   This paper examines Pompeo Batoni’s two portraits of members of the Sforza Cesarini family: the portrait of Duke Gaetano II in Melbourne and that of a woman traditionally identified as Gaetano’s wife, which hangs today in Birmingham. It readdresses the question of the identity of the sitter in the Birmingham portrait, and explores the social function of portraiture within the Sforza Cesarini’s extensive art collection and the likely place of Batoni’s two portraits within that collection.The paper concludes with a discussion of Batoni’s portraits of Roman sitters and questions the oft-repeated view that the paucity of such portraits was the result of the low esteem in which portraiture was traditionally said to be held in eighteenth-century Italy. This paper is the result of research carried out…

EVCS: Callum Reid ‘Annibale Carracci’s Holy Family at the National Gallery of Victoria’

Callum Reid ‘Annibale Carracci’s Holy Family at the National Gallery of Victoria’ This paper examines the little- studied Holy Family by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria, and discusses its style, iconography and position within the artist’s oeuvre. The subject of the ‘Holy Family’ was repeated several times during the artist’s transition from a Bolognese to a Roman style, and it provides a means of studying this development closely through a comparison between each painting: the constancy of theme and figures serves to highlight the critical changes in style. This paper presents the Melbourne Holy Family within the context of these smaller devotional works, considering both the social and personal transitions that they represent. It also brings to light new documents concerning the painting’s provenance and artistic reception. Date: Monday 5th September, 2011, 6:30pm. Venue: Rm 150, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, the University of Melbourne, Parkville. All Welcome. Drinks and nibbles provided (gold coin…

EVCS: Robert W. Gaston ‘Exploring a Postmodernist Bronzino’

This lecture was first delivered on December 10, 2020 at the British Institute, Florence, as the keynote address for the conference Agnolo Bronzino – Medici Court Artist in Context, a convegno that, in the words of its proposer, Prof. Andrea Gáldy, “sought to place the major exhibition of Bronzino’s work organised by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi into a broader artistic, historical, and economic context. Unlike a catalogue, the conference sessions will be organised thematically rather than focused exclusively on specific works by the artist, and will encourage specialists in other fields (such as tapestries or theatre) to bring new perspectives to bear on the artist and his world. We thus propose to anchor Bronzino in time, space, and the stylistic development of sixteenth century Italian art, without losing sight of trends in social and political history or patronage in Florence…

EVCS: David R. Marshall ‘Eugene Von Guérard and Daylesford: His Paintings for W.E. Stanbridge’

David R. Marshall Eugene Von Guérard and Daylesford: His Paintings for W.E. Stanbridge This paper, which arises from research for the catalogue for Ruth Pullin’s Eugene Von Guérard exhibition, currently on display at the NGV, examines Von Guérard’s views of the Daylesford district and their preparatory studies. It explores the interaction between Von Guérard’s training as a topographical artist in Italy and Germany and the picturesque mindset of the colonial public to whom his paintings were addressed. It also looks at the role of W.E. Stanbridge of Wombat Park as patron. Date: 6:30pm, Monday 2nd May Venue: Room 150 Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville All Welcome Drinks and nibbles provided (gold coin donation appreciated). The seminar will be followed by dinner in Lygon St. Please RSVP Mark Shepheard (shepm@unimelb.edu.au) if you plan to join us for dinner.

EVCS: Carl Villis ‘Giambattista Tiepolo, Francesco Algarotti and The Finding of Moses’

The European Visual Culture Seminar presents: Carl Villis, Conservator of Paintings before 1800, National Gallery of Victoria Giambattista Tiepolo, Francesco Algarotti and The Finding of Moses in the National Gallery of Victoria Between 1958 and 2008, the NGV’s large eighteenth-century Venetian canvas The Finding of Moses carried an attribution to Sebastiano Ricci. In 2009 this was changed to Giambattista Tiepolo after an extended technical examination and a major conservation treatment. This talk will trace the long history of the ‘new’ Tiepolo attribution, and will introduce the theory that the work is another product of the fruitful collaboration between Tiepolo and his friend and patron, Count Francesco Algarotti. Date: Monday 28 March 2021 6:30 pm Venue: Room 150 Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville All Welcome Drinks and nibbles provided (gold coin donation appreciated). The seminar will be followed by…

EVCS: Katrina Grant ‘Verdi prati, selve almene’: Theatres in the Italian Baroque Garden’

Katrina Grant ‘Verdi prati, selve almene’: Theatres in the Italian Baroque Garden The links between theatre and the garden have long been recognised. The theatre as a feature of garden design can be traced back to the fifteenth century and its peak period of popularity was the seventeenth century. It remained a common feature of gardens well into the eighteenth century, and even saw a revival in the early twentieth century. In modern scholarship these theatres are often explained simply as a symptom of the Baroque period’s obsessive ‘theatricality’. However, a closer look reveals that the theatre in the Baroque garden was, rather, a manifestation of a specific ideological approach to the space of the garden and its accompanying art forms. Date: Monday 28  February 2011 6:30 pm Venue: Room 150 Elisabeth Murdoch Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville All Welcome…